Lost Family

IV - Discoveries

Leia woke up late. It seemed as thought she had managed to fall asleep after all. She quickly got dressed and went into the kitchen, where Padmé and Han were just having breakfast.

"Good morning, Leia," Padmé greeted and motioned for her to sit down.

Leia took her seat and noticed that they had already put a plate and cutlery there for her.

"We didn't know how long it would take for you to wake up, so we thought you wouldn't mind if we started breakfast without you," Han smirked and Leia thought he could just suppress adding your worshipfulness.

"You could've woken me, you know," Leia responded while helping herself to toast.

"We didn't want to disturb your beauty rest," Han said, seemingly taking pleasure in mocking Leia, so she decided to ignore him and turned to Padmé instead.

"Do you have friends over sometimes, Senator Amidala?" she asked.

"Not very often," the senator replied, "and please, call me Padmé. I actually only have some of the other senators here sometimes, to discuss issues of the Senate."

Leia nodded in thought, she had noticed that there was no trace of the man from last night and she began to wonder whether she might have just dreamt everything. For now though, she decided not to tell Han, she would do that once she was certain it hadn't just been a dream.

~•~

Over the next few days, Leia took every opportunity to talk to Bail Organa, so Han was usually left talking to Padmé. And he got to like her. She was very kind to them, even though she hardly knew them and her views of the galaxy weren't as one-sided as those of other Senators he had come to know.

One day, when Leia had gone of with Bail once again and he was at Padmé's quarters with the senator she suddenly said: "You like her don't you?"

"What?" Han said surprised.

"Leia," Padmé said. "She likes you too."

"Yeah, I know," Han said, not bothering to ask how Padmé even knew about all this.

"But you two aren't in a relationship?" Padmé questioned.

"I guess not," Han shrugged, and he thought of Luke. Leia liked him too. Probably more than she liked him. Han liked Luke as well, but when he thought about Leia kissing him on the falcon all that time ago, an unexplainable knot formed in his stomach. "She likes someone else as well."

"Oh," Padmé said surprised.

"A Jedi at that," Han said, not even knowing why he was telling Padmé all this.

"But I thought Jedi weren't allowed to have any kind of relationships," Padmé exclaimed.

"Uh," Han stared at her for a moment, were Jedi really not allowed to have relationships in this time? "I don't know, I'm not really into all this Jedi business," he said slowly.

"Well, anyway," Padmé said quickly, "there's a senate meeting tomorrow and I was wondering whether you and Leia would like to come?"

"I'm sure she'd like that," Han said smiling, though his thoughts were still elsewhere.

So the next day, Padmé took them to the senate building. The debate was very boring and Han almost dozed off once or twice. But Leia seemed to be very interested in whatever was going on – Han didn't even understand half of it – so he didn't have anyone to talk to.

"Pelpatine's a good man," Padmé said suddenly and Han snapped out of his drowsy state, "but I'm afraid that he's handling the conflict with too much force."

"Chancellor Pelpatine?" Leia asked carefully.

"Yes," Padmé said sadly as Leia and Han shared a meaningful look. "What's up, you two?"

"Nothing," Leia said quickly. "We should probably return home though, the meeting is over and I don't much like this atmosphere."

On the way back to Padmé's apartment, Han and Leia trailed behind her to talk.

"Chancellor Pelpatine is the emperor!" Leia whispered to him.

"Yes, I know," Han whispered back, "but what can we do about it?"

"We have to tell someone!"

"Leia, think about it, even Padmé likes him, there's no way anyone would believe us and–"

"Padmé would believe us!" Leia cut him off.

"And we would have to explain the whole time travel situation which would make all of it sound even more unconvincing," Han continued calmly. "Face it, Princess, we'd only get into trouble by telling someone and it wouldn't help anyone."

"Oh, fine," Leia said miserably. "I guess your right, but we have to let someone know somehow!"

"We won't be able to do that without proof and that would be a little hard to get," Han reminded her and Leia grumbled something he didn't quite understand, but he thought it meant she saw his point.

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